Sniper Rifle
by Zaydee Kaine
Summary: An old woman's re-telling of her time with Jack Harkness.
1. Chapter 1

The capital city of Eckhart was a bustling metropolis with 20 million people. It was not only the capital city of one of the 3 continents on the planet Scour, it was the capital city of the entire planet. There were buildings 100 stories high with light rail and underground rail. There were hover car dealerships all retailing "discounted" prices or claiming they could beat the competitor. There was a very well established underground gambling business that was technically illegal, though the authorities looked the other way since it brought so much money to the city and almost no crime. All the buildings were made of shining metal that was polished on a monthly, or sometimes weekly basis; if they were not covered in shining metal, they were covered in large-paned windows that only the top executives could hope to score offices behind. It held all the embassies from the galaxies near and far and was in the middle of a trade route. Not a trade route for goods, but a trade route for information. As such, the planet of Scour had only enough agriculture to feed its inhabitants and visitors, and these farms were located in the farthest reaches from the capital city.

Many of the farms that harvested the food for processing and packaging were owned by religious fanatics. In a world full of information, with more coming by the hour, it would be only irony that the way those genius minds with the capacity to hold so much would rely on those who followed what they were told blindly without giving a second though. The religious groups on Scour mostly lived peacefully, much like the Amish of the planet Earth. They planted, they harvested, they prayed, and they believed in the family structure. Many prayed to a god that had been proven not to exist, or they prayed to one day end up on a planet of their own as a god of their own people, which had also proven to be an unsound theory. However, those who had intellectual pursuits in the city mostly left alone those who had religious pursuits in the country. Save for a few radicals, the two types of inhabitants of Scour left each other, for the most part, in peace.

The whole of Trinity Square was brightly lit with sunshine and a cool breeze was blowing in from the trenched lake to the east. It was just after noon and the square was crowded with people. Some were just leaving for lunch, some were coming back from lunch, and others were hoping to deliver messages or packages before their recipients left for lunch. It was the business crowd, all dressed in their fine tailored suits or pencil skirts, hair pinned up, ties tied in a variety of ways, shoes polished. Surrounding Trinity Square was the lake on one side, and office buildings on two others. On the fourth side was a patch of flat grass that raised up to form a small hill towards the back of the grassy patch. It was a hill that went over the underground railway, various colored lines taking trams and their occupants to various destinations. Behind that was a building to the right, which was up against the lake and looked out over the water and other buildings in town.

The sun was momentarily blocked by a hover craft as it descended in to the square. It was old, run down, obviously purchased second hand or else very old and not taken care of. The landing gear descended to hold the craft three feet above the ground, the craft landing on the side of the square that was close to the lake. A few people took notice, however many were too busy with their own schedules. Besides, sometimes people were rude and decided to land their hovercrafts wherever they pleased; it was just a sign of the times.

The door hatch opened, folding down to reveal a small staircase for runway boarding. Out of it peeked one woman wearing a long, unflattering pastel pink dress that had long sleeves with frills on the end and a matching collar on it. She knelt down and aimed an old fashioned AK-4 at the crowd. She began firing.

People panicked at the quick "brrrr-at" sound of the gun but a second later, two more women peered out from the open hatch, each with the same weapons as the first. And they began to spray the crowd with bullets. A second hover craft landed with women mirroring the ones in the first, some aiming higher and spraying the inhabitants of the café on the first floor of one of the building, shooting out windows on the second and third floor of others. It was a massacre by the religious cultists, taking out their rage on a people they saw as "sinners" when in reality, they were people going about their daily lives.

Gasping for breath.

I rolled over towards the lamp on my bedside table, struggling to wake myself but the sleep that I was in was so heavy I could barely open my eyes before I flicked on the light next to the bed. Then my senses came and I smelled the familiar scent of home, heard the refrigerator ticking away unevenly against the ticking of the clock in the kitchen in the other room. I heard mostly silence in my apartment, and felt the cool calm roll over me as I lay staring at the beige wall of my bedroom. In the distance I heard the faint roaring of the public transit system still shuttling people to and from work. I threw the blankets off and rolled over, barely got to my feet and walked as quickly as my tired legs would take me to the living room. I clicked on the television, flipping to Channel 5 News.

It was a story about adopting one of the furry 3-tailed puppies from the shelter. I made to sit on the arm rest of the couch but found myself sinking backwards on to the couch, laying down as the flicker of the tv and the voice of the news broadcaster washed over me in sweet relief.

It had been a dream. Just a really bad dream, I told herself. _You wish it was a dream_, a small voice whispered in my head. And I knew it was true. If only the scene I had just experienced had been a dream, if only it had been that harmless. But no, I knew it was not a dream. In a world full of technology, of information flow through wires and satellites so fast that news broke even before those in the story had known they would make the news, it was completely unheard of except for in works of fiction that somebody should have premonitions. Yet sitting here in my 1-bedroom apartment with my fuzzy printed pajamas and tank top, with my red kettle on the stove and zebra-stripe shower curtain, with all the safety I felt around me, I suddenly felt my very being exposed to forces that could not be explained by science.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time I ever saw Captain Jack Harkness was on the television. I was maybe 6 or 7 years old, my brother was 8 or 9. We sat on our parents' living room floor, inches from the tv; nobody was there to tell us not to sit so close. And we watched as he waved to the crowd as he walked on to a platform to receive a metal of honor. He had stayed behind on a ship that was burning up in the atmosphere while the rest of the crew were launched safely to the ground in the escape pod. I learned in my later years that the pod had to be launched from the cockpit, and the ship had to be steered as best as it could away from one of the bustling cities on some distant planet. He had burned up in the fire, choking on smoke with his skin sizzling in the flames.

But he was un-killable. He was the man who could not be killed, the man with the square jawline and charming smile; the man who took men and women in to his bed equally, though this last part I did not know at the time for I was too young to understand these things. My brother and I stared transfixed; "Un-killable Man Saves Shuttle," "Captain Jack Harkness Saves Astronauts and Mondova, Burns Up But Lives On." The titles in the newspapers and the magazines on the sidewalk stands that I passed on the way to school were endless. That happened on a Sunday. And on Monday, I asked my teacher about the un-killable man. While I was young, my teacher Mrs. Carolina Sheen was happy to oblige her students in a few tales of heroics from Jack, atleast the tales we understood.

And I was hooked. I became like every other teenage girl who had ever seen Jack on the telly; he was young, he was charming, he made us all swoon. He had broad shoulder and always wore that blue coat over his buttoned up shirt and uniform pants. When I was 17 I joined the Space Forces so that one day I might be able to meet him. The Space Forces on Scour flew to other distant plants to wage war or hold the peace, whatever the local politicians decided. So I hoped one day I would be able to fly out there to the Zebulon Nebula or the Milky Way, and maybe, just maybe if I was lucky enough, I would get to meet Jack.

I was picked up for an elite sniper training class early on. I always knew my aim was good when my brother and I would run around with foam guns and try to shoot each other, but I had never considered it a rare quality until one of my instructors pulled me to the side for a private lesson to test my accuracy. After the sniper training class I was transferred to be trained in that elite profession; one of only a dozen women in the entire history of Scour.

Then my brother died. His body was turned to molten ash after a piece of space junk slammed his body in to the ground. It took them a week to discover the body under the rock since the flaming ball of metal had burned part of the forest next to our childhood home. It took them a few weeks more to discover it was him. Our parents were businesspeople and hardly ever home, and by this time they had both died. My mother died when the airlock went out in the space craft she was in for travel; my father died the same way though that was a few months later. We were orphans by the time I was 19, but now I was completely alone.

We buried what we could find of his body in a small plot in the cemetery near our home. Our parents were buried on Orlok, their home planet. But we had never lived there, never even visited, so I decided to bury him in a place I knew he had lived and loved. I took a year off from training after that.

When I returned to the Academy I didn't want to learn to be a sniper anymore. I didn't want to be around death, and certainly didn't want to cause it. So I took the first job that was a non-combat position; I began printing out certificates. I printed certificates for people who were much braver than me; certificates for people who had done heroic things in the line of duty that I knew I would never do. I kept my SN 14-12 sniper rifle locked in a box in the bottom of my closet, but never took it out as I worked the mundane desk job. I was lost.

I've always had premonitions, as young as I can remember. I used to tell people, I used to try to stop them. I once tried to stop my friend Billy Hackworth from breaking his arm on the jungle gym; I succeeded. But fate doesn't like to be changed, and after a few more attempts at changing the future, I found myself incapable. Instead of Doreen Walworth failing her Arithmetic test because I helped her study, she failed her History final instead. Instead of my brother getting a fine for failing to return a library book since I returned it for him, he got a parking ticket instead. Some time in my teens I stopped trying to stop fate; and for the most part the premonitions I had were minor. A broken wrist here, a fine there, perhaps a failed date.

I never saw my brother's death. For that I am both saddened because I hope against hope I could have prevented it. For another thing, I don't think I could watch him die twice; once in a premonition, and once in real life of something worse like drowning or getting blown out the air lock. I don't think I could bare that. But no premonition that I had ever had had been such a violent act as the one perpetrated by the religious fanatics. And I knew I had to do something. I realize, and am still fairly aware, that through intervening, the people I saved would most likely die in other ways. I only hoped that not all would die of tragedy, and that some would live on to ripe old ages before fate caught up with them.

Now, my premonitions always gave me a way of stopping them. For one, I always knew the events preceding them. I always knew that Jamie-Lynn was picking her nose 30 seconds before Billy was going to fall and break his arm, so I could save him. This constantly happened; but I always had to reflect on the dream to find what it was I could do to stop the events from happening. And this one was especially difficult since it was so violent because I was caught up in the violent slaughter of the scene.


	3. Chapter 3

The whole of Trinity Square was brightly lit with sunshine and a cool breeze was blowing in from the trenched lake to the east. It was just after noon and the square was crowded with people. Some were just leaving for lunch, some were coming back from lunch, and others were hoping to deliver messages or packages before their recipients left for lunch. It was the business crowd, all dressed in their fine tailored suits or pencil skirts, hair pinned up, ties tied in a variety of ways, shoes polished. Surrounding Trinity Square was the lake on one side, and office buildings on two others. On the fourth side was a patch of flat grass that raised up to form a small hill towards the back of the grassy patch. It was a hill that went over the underground railway, various colored lines taking trams and their occupants to various destinations.

On the back slope of the hill, I slid to the ground with my guitar case in hand. My rifle fit snuggly in 3 pieces; the silencer, the barrel, and the grip. I also had a spare battery for the laser bullets, the scope, and the bipod. I pieced it all together, laying low on the hill. Someone had to see me. I had no way of getting out of there. Someone had to be watching, I told myself; nobody was ever on this lawn, there had to be somebody watching this strange person set up a rifle and I was absolutely certain that atleast two dozen calls were going in to the police right now. But I would save the crowd, I would save the square, and be taken in to custody and questioned. And then my brain would be prodded, and I would be kept in a cell for the rest of my life as some sort of freak whose brain must be prodded with all sorts of needles and scanned with all sorts of machinery so that I would most likely die of radiation poisoning in ten years time.

But I wanted to save these people, and was glad to suffer the consequences of stopping such a massacre. Then maybe, just maybe, while I was imprisoned, if I had a premonition of another massacre, they would listen to me and stop it before it happened. Or maybe they would throw me in the loony bin and shut away the key.

I focused my scope, laying on my belly with my finger on the trigger, one eye squeezed shut tight. My rifle was near the exact spot that they would land. I opened my eyes and looked up, hearing what I knew now were the sounds of the hover craft's engines. I began to control my breathing. I hadn't given myself enough time to get control over myself, since that's what all this was about. Complete control over your breathing, over the saliva building up in your mouth as the adrenaline began to pump blood through your veins, kicking your body in to gear. I breathed out.

The hover craft landed, the door opened. I saw the woman with the pink dress lean out. I pulled the trigger. She fell back with immense force, and I had braced for the recoil. It felt familiar, and suddenly I was focused. What was the song my brother used to listen to? The lyrics were, "Happiness is a warm gun." And that's exactly what it was. I re-aimed; I had just changed the future, and the second and third woman were hesitant. Urged on, I'm guessing, by their leader who stood out of view, they peeked out and I hit the other. I could imagine the blood cloud puffing up from her splintered skull, spraying blood all over the women behind her. I fired again, the bullet grazing the side of the door and hitting the third woman right in her temple.

The second plane landed and the door opened. I aimed but hesitated. There were police swarming the scene. But she was going to fire at them and massacre them all since they didn't have control of the scene, even with their portable EMP's that could be aimed at objects with computers and render them useless. I shot her too, saw the bullet go in and the spray fly out behind her as she fell back. I slid down two feet, working fast to dismantle my gun. Muscle memory helped me work fast, placing each piece of weaponry back in the case. I snapped it shut, slid down only another foot or two before I stood up and ran at a job. Everybody else was running and screaming, and I easily joined the crowd in running away from the scene.

I didn't sleep that night. I sat up at in my entry way on a chair I got from the kitchen and faced the door. I had an undrunk cup of tea in my hand all night, with the gun in its case placed behind the chair. But the police did not come. Nobody came. When the first rays of sun began to peak in to my front windows next to the door, I rose. I had to get ready for work.

I dressed in a daze that was half from sleep and half from the numbness of what I had done. I didn't turn on the television. If they were going to arrest me, they would find me. But the entire day, as I waited and expected them to come to my cubicle, the office remained silent. I couldn't take it anymore. So after work, I did the one thing I made a point not to do… I went to the bar for a drink.

The bar near my job was full of Service Members; it was the closest bar to the offices so many a marine or space cadet or what have you went to the bar for happy hour as soon as the 5 o'clock whistle sounded. I sat by myself on the third seat from the corner of the bar. After my brother died and I left the sniper program, I tried to stay in contact with my comrades but my depression quickly cause me to lose contact. And now it was only my boss and I in our office, so I had nobody to have a drink with. Which was okay, since I had never really had friends, except for my brother of course. I preferred to be alone.

So I sat sipping a rum and coke, my head slightly bent down but my eyes staring up transfixed at the television as I read the subtitles as fast as the typist could get them out. There was nothing on there about me. Absolutely nothing. In fact, they were still speculating. Speculating, in fact, as much as Captain Jack Harkness and his buddies who had just come in to the bar for a drink. I did not know that Jack had just entered the bar, but then I heard his voice. Strong, full of confidence and a good nature, he sat down at the raised bar table behind me with three of his buddies. My back stiffened and my eyes widened as I shakily raised my drink to my lips, too stunned to turn around.

"He must be one tough son of a-"

"Right? Enduring all the goddamn media sensation and remaining silent."

"I don't know man, I mean he could have already cracked a deal with the FBI."

"Maybe he doesn't want to be found."

"Could be a fugitive."

"If he's smart he's probably not even on this planet anymore."

"Yeah," "Yeah," echoed the group. I had my drink an inch from my lips, staring at the bottles of booze behind the bar, below the television, listening.

"Imagine though, like planning that all out?"

"How'd he know?"

"I know" Jack said in agreement, "He had to have some damn good timing,"

"Maybe he was in on it," said one of his friends. Another one agreed.

"Could be," he concurred. "But why kill your fellow "sisters," you know?"

"Maybe he was sick. Diverted from the cult or something."

"Had to be."

"You know that was the only part of the lawn they didn't have camera's on?"

"Yeah I heard."

"You fucking kidding me? Seriously?"

"Seriously," Jack continued. "It had to be, what a whole twenty square feet that's unmonitored in this city, and it happens to be that single 20 square feet right there."

"Geez."

"Lucky."

"That's not luck, that's an inside job. I'm telling you guys-"

"Oh shut up with your conspiracy theories," Jack lightheartedly said, slapping his friend on the back.

The conversation continued, bantering back and forth about who the guy with the sniper rifle could have been. I finished my drink and left shortly afterwards. And that night I slept in my bed though I drifted in and out of a restless sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

The President had come to the Center to make a speech about the bravery of whomever stopped the massacre that almost happened in Trinity Square. This was four days after the incident; I hadn't slept more than six hours in those long four days. There were four or five speakers before him, and we were all brought down to sit in the white plastic chairs that looked good on the telly in contrast to our dark uniforms.

Jack was there. I could spot him out of the crowd because of his hat; it was brown, from Earth's World War II. It stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the sea of dark blue. I sat on the end of a row, every day making me more and more jittery. I knew I couldn't hold out forever; I would eventually crack and tell somebody. I could see it happening, losing recognition of whether it was a premonition or me just mulling over the scene so often in my hazy, sleep deprived brain. I saw myself walking in to the police station with my gun in its case and turning myself over, resigning myself to scientific imprisonment.

The afternoon sun was hot, and my lunch of tuna sandwich that I had only eaten half of made me feel sick. I sat squinting through slited eyes and looked at the back of Jack's hat. He was seven rows up and twentyish seats over, listening to the speeches like a diligent soldier. After the third one though, I saw his head move slightly and he stood up (I found out later he had been checking his watch). He exited the row he was in, apologizing as he went and slowly made his way towards the back of the crowd, then towards the elevator that went down to the underground rail. I rose and went after him.

A mixture of nausea and sleep deprivation let my feet one after the other. He had stopped to face the raised platforms where somebody of importance was making a speech, but he was looking down at his phone to check the underground rail times. I made a b-line for him.

He looked up when I was two feet away from him, his face raising, lips parted as if to say something. I slid the hat off my head and kissed him. I remember him straightening up out of surprise, but he smoothly slid an arm around my waist, pulling me to him. I reached up and put one hand on the back of his neck, feeling his brown hair between my fingers while I grabbed the lapel of his jacket with the other. He kissed me like he had been waiting for this his whole life, like I was the most important woman in the world to him, as if I was the only one he would ever kiss again.

I laid bare naked on my stomach under ruffled sheets, my hands bent at the elbow and underneath the pillow. Jack lay on his back, one hand under his head and the other on his stomach, looking occasionally from me to the ceiling. I kept my eyes on him, trying not to close my eyes for fear that I would fall asleep on him. His bed was so warm, and even though it was just hotel sheets washed with basic detergent, he had spent four nights in them, and they smelled like his musk.

I don't remember what I said after we kissed. I think it was, "Take me to dinner" or "We need to talk." Whatever I said, I know we didn't go to dinner and that he ended up caressing me as no man had touched me. I think he sensed something was off about me, that I wasn't just some girl who had walked away from the President's speech to go back to his hotel room. So he calmed my shaking hands and helped me undo the buttons on his shirt, caressing my arm as my hand worked on him and he took care to kiss every inch of my inner thighs to keep me calm.

And now we lay side by side, my weary mind the most vulnerable it had ever been. And then I said it, just as he opened his mouth to speak.

"I did it."

He turned his head to me, closing his mouth, then speaking, "Did what?"

"I'm the sniper. I shot those radicals."

His eyes widened and he rolled on to his side, proppin himself up. I couldn't make eye contact.

"You're kidding?"

"I did it Jack." It felt good to let it out, to share the burden. I felt my eyelids flutter.

"You did it? But I thought you worked in an office."

"I was in the academy for it." I closed my eyes, I couldn't even look at him. I was disgraced at having murdered people, my resolve completely gone. "Then my brother died, and I quiet the program."

He rubbed my back and I opened my eyes, which were glazed over in tears.

"You have to tell them," he whispered, rubbing his warm, strong hand over my back tenderly.

"I know," I whispered. I reached an arm over to him and he laid back down, pulling me close as the burden of the past four days was released as I fell in to a 12-hour sleep.


End file.
